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AuthorTopic: Python in B/W? (Read 3,131 times)
Steven Kassell
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Python in B/W?
« Thread Started on Apr 19, 2012, 8:48pm »
I just read in an article in Dr Who magazine that the BBC only exported B/W film telerecordings, not videotape, overseas until the early 70s. Does this mean that MONTY PYTHON was originally shown on 16mm B/W film in Canada? I'd wondered why the Pythons had to make NTSC versions of earlier episodes as late as 1974, assuming that they'd already existed for Canada(Unless there had been and they were wiped). I DID see FORSYTHE SAGA on videotape in the late 60s!
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Steven Sigel
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #1 on Apr 19, 2012, 11:54pm »
I'm not sure about Canada, but there were B&W prints of Monty Python shown on AFRTS (American Armed Forces Radio and Television Service). I've got a few of them including the episode with the infamous Jesus/Satan "missing" animation .
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Simon Smith
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #2 on Apr 20, 2012, 1:33pm »
Would they have had Frost's phone number?
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RWels
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #3 on Apr 21, 2012, 10:40am »
Or the Choreopgraphed Party Political Broadcast (for which the existing video footage is medium quality at best)?
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Rob Moss
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #4 on Apr 21, 2012, 7:43pm »
And therefore the next question is whether there are any chroma dots..!
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Paul Vanezis
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #5 on Apr 21, 2012, 8:25pm »

Apr 21, 2012, 7:43pm, Rob Moss wrote:
And therefore the next question is whether there are any chroma dots..!


Well, I hope to be in a position to answer all of these questions very soon.
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stevenkassell
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Re: Python in B/W?-Bootleg
« Reply #6 on Apr 21, 2012, 8:42pm »
I remember a B/W film bootleg being shown at Mass Institute of Technology a few years before Python was ever on US Public TV-It was the SPAM episode. The same episode was available on the grey market, still B/W film, after Python hit it big here. It could have been swiped from a Canadian station or the Forces Network, or maybe it was just some guy filming it off a TV screen right there in England (The end credits read "Copyright SPAM" instead of BBC, so people decided that made it public domain).
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RWels
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #7 on Apr 21, 2012, 9:26pm »

Apr 21, 2012, 8:25pm, Paul Vanezis wrote:

Apr 21, 2012, 7:43pm, Rob Moss wrote:
And therefore the next question is whether there are any chroma dots..!


Well, I hope to be in a position to answer all of these questions very soon.

That's very interesting. So far it doesn't appear anything was done with the recoveries except for the inclusion of the Political Choreopgrapher as a dvd extra, not even from the source but bloody downloaded from youtube (a pledge phone number free copy has since been found as well)!
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Paul Vanezis
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #8 on Apr 21, 2012, 10:58pm »
By way of a quite obvious tease, the Conservative Choreography sketch was film recorded. It still survives as a negative and it does indeed have chroma dots on it.

The whole of season one was also film recorded off-air as well but they haven't been checked.

Regards,

Paul
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RWels
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #9 on Apr 22, 2012, 11:46am »

Apr 21, 2012, 10:58pm, Paul Vanezis wrote:
By way of a quite obvious tease, the Conservative Choreography sketch was film recorded. It still survives as a negative and it does indeed have chroma dots on it.

The whole of season one was also film recorded off-air as well but they haven't been checked.

Regards,

Paul

This is the first time I hear about this. May I ask where these items survive? I thought the BBC didn't have that much footage left except for the standard versions of all episodes. (I'm pretty sure the BBC does not have the P.P.C., or else the One Show wouldn't have asked me for a copy a few weeks ago.) It wouldn't surprise me though if Python ltd. had had them all along but had never bothered to properly look into it.
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Monty Python has been available on DVD for some time, but some things are missing!

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Paul Vanezis
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #10 on Apr 22, 2012, 5:47pm »

Apr 22, 2012, 11:46am, RWels wrote:
May I ask where these items survive? I thought the BBC didn't have that much footage left except for the standard versions of all episodes. (I'm pretty sure the BBC does not have the P.P.C., or else the One Show wouldn't have asked me for a copy a few weeks ago.) It wouldn't surprise me though if Python ltd. had had them all along but had never bothered to properly look into it.


I think the problem is and has always been that nobody bothered to check in the BBC library. There is an enormous amount that people don't know about. All the black and white film recordings are indeed at the BBC. There are also film inserts, studio recordings, VT out-takes etc... All the film for series four is there for example... I too was surprised to see the choreography off-air used on 'The One Show'; it's in the BBC library. Worse, if they were going to use the off-air, they should have used the one that survives without the pledge drive number on it.

Paul
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Rob Moss
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #11 on Apr 22, 2012, 6:58pm »
Am I the only one who finds the prospect of Python out-takes really quite exciting..?
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Rich Cornock
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #12 on Apr 22, 2012, 7:13pm »
now that would be more interesting than showing the same old stuff every time there is a python anniversary
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RWels
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #13 on Apr 22, 2012, 10:40pm »
But Paul, speaking from memory, previous reports always denied the existance of truly unseen material such as studio tapes and outtakes. Apart from that, why would the BBC keep b/w telerecordings of episodes thought to exist fully in colour?
I know examples of documentaries simply not bothering to search & use archive footage, but if there were studio tapes in existance, surely some of the many python documentaries from the past 20+ years would have used them. (While The One Show was a hasty affair, and who knows, perhaps they had already started preparations with the time coded survivor before they received the other one.) I hate to be pessimistic, but I doubt there is anything that wasn't already in the episodes.
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Monty Python has been available on DVD for some time, but some things are missing!

Please read the story, and sign the petition below:

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Paul Vanezis
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Re: Python in B/W?
« Reply #14 on Apr 23, 2012, 12:22am »

Apr 22, 2012, 10:40pm, RWels wrote:
But Paul, speaking from memory, previous reports always denied the existance of truly unseen material such as studio tapes and outtakes. Apart from that, why would the BBC keep b/w telefbrecordings of episodes thought to exist fully in colour? I hate to be pessimistic, but I doubt there is anything that wasn't already in the episodes.


Well, the choreography sketch is there intact. On the end of the very first recording all the unused material is spliced on the end & includes an uncut animation which was truncated in the broadcast episode. Lots of film inserts survive, including all of series four. One of them (can't recall which) was cut after TX. Reinstating the film would go a good way to restoring that episode. I think two studio recordings survive. They aren't that exciting as I recall, but certainly worth looking at. The film recordings of series one and three are there (not sure if all of series three are) and I don't know if chroma dots are on them all. But Frosts telephone number is intact.

Paul
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